The View Below the Throne
by MonsterBrat
Summary: *Ulquiorra, Aizen* Grimmjaw, armless and bored, happens across someone in similar circumstances. Yaoi, a bit violent… nothing M-rated though.


Grimmjaw, armless and bored, happens across someone in similar circumstances.

The View Below the Throne

He walks by Aizen-sama's room once a day or so. It's not like this is fucking special, Grimmjaw's bedroom is just down that one gigantic hall, same as every Espada's. They're arranged by rank, even, so his is quite close. The noises that come out of that room when it's the middle of "the night" and he's on the prowl -- fuck. Whatever.

He's been doing that a lot, lately. Since his Fraccion died out his entertainment's been dry as fuck, his arm itches with phantom pains and he's so fucking _bored_. Sleeping's out of the question, too. Arrankar don't sleep much in general, too close a state to that Big Black Nothing that they're all frantically escaping from, and when there isn't even a body nearby to wake you up every couple of minutes with the fucking shifting it's just a completely worthless exercise.

Mostly you can hear Ichimaro in there, behind closed (or occasionally quite open) doors. When it's night or whatever passes for night in Hueco Mundo. The Shinigami keep to a kind of day-night schedule that's completely foreign and unnatural to a Hollow. It'd be freaking hilarious if they weren't so much stronger that it didn't matter.

You can do whatever you want when you're strong. Fuck people over. Cut off their arms. Enjoy the fuck out of your existence.

On his way by Aizen's room and out to the rest of the compound are the rooms of the rest of the Espada. Ulquiorra's room, often empty at exactly that time when everyone is pretending to be good little hollows, asleep in their beds or quietly training or having sneaked out somewhere to let out some steam. Exactly at that time when Grimmjaw's most up for an argument (though even those are cut short for him by the very simple gesture of someone poking the remains of his arm, and soon enough he'll be kicked out of the fucking compound and left to the lower ranks, in another building entirely).

Ulquiorra's the only one still good for a fight, really. It's fucking torture to admit, but most of the others either don't care or like to kick a guy when he's down, and keep kicking till there's nothing left, and even Grimmjaw knows when he's got to roll over. So he avoids the fuckers, all except the Espada who wouldn't kill anyone without Aizen's say-so. Grimmjaw _knows_ he can keep pestering the bastard and without orders to the contrary all that's ever going to get dented is that damnable self-control.

Except these days Ulquiorra's not around when he's most useful, and his self-control is entirely too easy to dent.

So it's what passes for very early morning, and everyone's hiding out in respect of the overlord's say-so, and Grimmjaw, who's got little to lose and much to retain in the way of sanity, is wandering up and down the halls. His room is suffocating and tiny and he misses the desert, kinda. And maybe hunting little hollows is pathetic but it's better than nothing.

Ulquiorra's room is empty as he passes it. The door is closed, but you don't gotta see nothing to know where everyone is. He can feel Halibel in a room two doors ahead, entertaining her Fraccion. Stark close by, probably asleep. Barragan is likely to be reading. Szayel is not around (thankfully he's usually locked up in his lab on the northern side). Nnoitra, not here, who the fuck cares anyway. Grimmjaw's been avoiding him like the fucking plague cuz the guy just wants to kill him, get rid of loose ends or whatever. Luupi… hmm. In Ichimaru's room. Little shit has a death sentence coming, as soon as Grimmjaw can manage, but likely it's not going to be before they kick him out of his room and install the little bastard there instead.

And Cuarto Espada extraordinaire. As usual these days, at Aizen's. Didn't used to be so often, as Grimmjaw figures. Not that he fucking cares. If the only way that bitch can get by with Aizen is to put his ass to work, go a-fucking-head.

He pauses in front of Aizen's room, though. Next to him is the door that leads out of the hall and into the rest of the compound, where he can probably find some other entertainment (even if it's only Privaron trash). He's fucking close to leaving for the night, too, except there's a final shift in that usually-tranquil reitsu that's been going up and down like crazy for the past few hours, then Aizen moves inside the room or something, and then the door is opening and Ulquiorra is staring at him, in the process of zipping up his shirt.

"Fuck you." Grimmjaw says automatically.

The bastard doesn't respond, but finishes closing his jacket, and picks in disapproval at the blood spattered all over it, and closes the door respectfully. Then he turns around and goes back in the direction of his room.

Grimmjaw's like a meter from the door to some normal entertainment that isn't able to rip what's left of him to shreds, so of course he turns the fuck around and follows that cold bastard back the way he came.

They're right next to Ulquiorra's room, a few doors up from Grimmjaw's, and if they make noise now Halibel will come out with her whole fucking Fraccion and rip them both a new one just to have something to do. So Grimmjaw slams his remaining arm into the other's shoulder and watches the uncharacteristic way in which Ulquiorra avoids the blow instead of taking it or pausing to retaliate. Not even enough to bruise, hard as that is to admit. Grimmjaw wasn't trying that hard, but in his state he'd have to go all out just to get a real rise.

"What do you want?" He says, and reaches for his bedroom's door handle. Grimmjaw swings again, aiming for the area on his lower back where the white coat is dark with blood, but Ulquiorra steps forward into the room and avoids the blow again.

"What the fuck do you get out of being Aizen's bitch? That's what I want to know." He says. "It's fucking boring." Because maybe the fucker doesn't get just how boring it is when your entire Fraccion's dead and all your brothers and sisters are liable to kill you and the only people you have any sway with are all the way across the compound and bear you a fucking big grudge.

"Go entertain yourself, then." And the door is closed in his face.

He bashes it open with his foot, making it crash into the wall, and Halibel can suck his balls. He'll make however much goddamn noise he wants.

Ulquiorra pauses from where he's looking for a clean shirt in his little closet. His room's pretty much exactly the same as Grimmjaw's (and everyone else's), except everything is spotless.

"Don't fucking ignore me, asshole." Grimmjaw says. He's bored and on edge and he wants a fight. And if the fucker avoids his hits one more time, so fucking patronizing when they both know Grimmjaw can't hit shit right now, he's going to go fucking nuts, and screw survival.

Then he notices the gapping wound on the other's lower back, and another freakishly close to his hollow hole (the edges are frayed, it gives Grimmjaw the creeps like no other injury could), evident now that the stained coat is removed. There are other marks, but those two dominate the scene. There's something fucking sweet about the contrast of blood and gore across Ulquiorra's normally neat figure, even with the number four mockingly clear as he turns around.

"Like it rough, do ya." Grimmjaw says. He can't help it, he's staring, and _fucking hell_ but he wants El Forte back right now. Or anyone else, for that matter. It's fucking lame to be ex-Espada.

"Leave." Ulquiorra says, and moves forward to presumably force obedience.

"Make me, fucker." Grimmjaw moves back, circles, and then further into the room. Ulquiorra is probably more injured than what is in evidence, because he stops and assesses the situation instead of simply continuing.

Then he is behind Grimmjaw, hand shoved half-way into his chest, and it might be the fucking _pain_ but he thinks he feels quick little breaths of over-exertion against the back of his neck. The hand retreats, and then moves forward again, this time to shove against the wound and force him in the direction of the door. Grimmjaw stumbles out of range and then turns and charges, swinging full force at the worst of the damage. His arm is soon covered in a warm glove of blood, matching Ulquiorra's.

They're breathing hard, though Ulquiorra is trying to hide it. Blood is slowly staining his hakama, pooling at the obi, mixing with a sheen of sweat.

Grimmjaw couldn't stop if he wanted, he's had a taste of blood, finally, and he's wound up, and if he can just get this fucker now he might have a chance at the Espada again. So he charges again, is repelled, keeps going.

He wants to break this damned son of a bitch who's looked down on him for the entirety of his existence, finally rip apart that composure, make his own marks. He's not fucking below Aizen. He's not below anyone. And if he doesn't prove this, now when he is at the edges of his rope, he's going to be destroyed.

"Leave, Grimmjaw." Ulquiorra says again. He makes no other movements save avoidance.

A phantom pain from his arm momentarily crashes against him. It is blinding and sourceless and he can't do anything about it. Reminds him of other shit he can do nothing about, in the same sense that Ulquiorra's back reminds him of his arm.

He stops, feels sickening. Retrogression feels only a step away. More phantom pains from a long time ago.

"You better stop that bleeding." He says, when it's subsided. Grimmjaw settles against Ulquiorra's bed, makes himself comfortable, and looks to his own wounds. Not too fucking bad. He'll go hunting tomorrow and heal a little that way.

Ulquiorra assesses him again. Then he picks up his old shirt, rips it to shreds, and wounds the cloth around his chest. It soaks up the worst of the bleeding, sort of.

"What the fuck do you see in Aizen?" He asks, finally, because he's bored and there's nothing better to do.

"Leave, Grimmjaw." Ulquiorra says, but he moves only to retrieve the new coat and put it over the remains of the old, as if there's any point to it.

Then he comes over to the bed, the only other piece of furniture in the room, and sits down, ignoring its present occupant.

They sit in silence for a moment. Grimmjaw hates it, inactivity is just that little bit closer to death, really. Silence, too. The _lack_ of something, even something as pointless as conversation with Ulquiorra, he can't stand it. And yet, he finds that for the first time, he has nothing to say.

"What do you want?"

A look at Ulquiorra's face wouldn't lead anyone to suspect he might have spoken. You couldn't fucking tell by looking at him that Grimmjaw's even in the room. And Grimmjaw for once isn't sure of the answer. Probably he's just attracted to carnage.

"Fucking bored, I told you." He says instead, not sure why.

And then, because inactivity is death, and retrogression is death, and if he can't get a bite now he never will again, Grimmjaw grabs that idiotic skinny pasty little fucker that calls himself Espada and kisses him as hard as he can without biting his lips off. And if there's Aizen there, in the non-taste that has got to be pure Ulquiorra, then fuck it, because Aizen is everywhere, and he owns everything that Grimmjaw has ever had or wanted or needed or craved, and he's past the point where he wants a piece for himself alone.

To own something in Hueco Mundo is as artificial as the days and nights the Shinigami impose, and yet somehow it is so much more binding. Hollows don't own, don't care, don't want. Hollows devour, and carry inside everything that they are. The concept of an outer-ownership, of needs beyond the hunt and the fear of retrogression…

Maybe Aizen brought those with him when he came. But they're Grimmjaw's now.

"Fuck Shinigami." He says, as they reach for air. Ulquiorra's been shoved down against the covers, and when he sits up again there are smears of blood there, across his lips and the bed.

"Now you understand." Is the ever-unfeeling reply.

END

A/N: Aizen and co. are not hollows. They control hollows because they're strong, but honestly… I think that the difference in their powers and their numbers is going to become problematic (kinda like that guy Aizen lets "steal" the Hogyoku, who resented being ruled by Shinigami). Then again I guess every hollow gets eaten by somebody. Aizen just came around and ate the whole lot of them.

Anyway… as for retrogression, I'm not really saying that Grimmjaw fears becoming a lower level again, but that it's just a phantom pain from the years he DID spend fearing this thing. It's the same way that his idea that Aizen brought every feeling but the need to grow and hunt when he came is also wrong… you can see it in the flashbacks with him and his Fraccion whom he also refuses to devour. And the same thing happens here, with Ulquiorra. So I guess hollows are not really all about the hunt…

As for Ulquiorra… I think he is half just too tired to care about some low-life (it would be different if Grimmjaw was actually Espada) and the other half sick of Aizen, maybe. Although he wouldn't say that, and maybe he doesn't think of it like that. And my pet theory is that he likes Grimmjaw's stubbornness more than he lets on, and is contrary to him just to teach a subordinate a lesson.

Anyway, it's just an idea I had after one too many Aizen/Ulquiorra fics. A little more forward than I generally write. Tell me how it went!

(I can't believe how long this author's note is… )


End file.
